Calif. Counties Post Nation’s Biggest Job Growth

(CN) – The California counties of San Francisco, Riverside and San Bernardino led the nation in employment growth, the U.S. Census Bureau said in its latest economic report.

The report looked at the largest 50 counties in the United States from 2014-2015. It found that San Francisco’s employment numbers jumped 6.6 percent, up 37,843 to 611,140 employees. Riverside grew by 4.9 percent, and San Bernardino by 4.4 percent.

San Francisco also had the largest annual payroll increase among the nation’s ten biggest counties in 2015, growing 12.1 percent to $59.3 billion.

For the Southern California counties, the growth was mostly seen in the warehousing and transportation industries.

With 14.3 million employees and an annual payroll of $857 billion, California – the nation’s most populous state – had more employees and a larger annual payroll than any other state in 2015, followed by Texas and New York.

After California, counties in Florida, Utah, Massachusetts, Texas and Michigan saw the most employment growth between 2014 and 2015, hovering between 3.6 and 4.3 percent.

A spokesman for the U.S. Census Bureau said the report excludes government jobs and does not account for how well the jobs that contributed to employment growth pay.